welcome

“So we did it! It only took 20-odd

Bring in the new and out with the…

NEW RELEASES > COMMENT > INDUSTRY HAPPENINGS

App watch

We report on the latest developments in phone and tablet music making

Get with the programmers

MIA Laboratories recreate hi-end recording studio gear in software. Founder Chris Stratos is not missing in action and tells us all about it

Steinberg’s lo-fi piano for free

HALion owners rejoice, because among the slew of

Ins & outs

THE PITT FACTORY Not only is Brad Pitt

BACK ISSUES

Catch up with Apple Newsstand back copies – all of these issues include video and Vault downloads!

Next issue

Revealed: the perfect , free studio

15 questions with… Sissi Rada

With a background in both classical harp playing and electronic music, Sissi Rada was almost destined to end up living and working in Berlin. But no one could have predicted that after playing her harp with a vibrator in front of Brian Eno she would end up collaborating with him. “He makes the best jokes and I laugh a lot, so we immediately became close,” she says. Maybe it was written in the stars after all…

Beat it!

We open our How To Do Everything features with beats, and with our free plugins, you can get great beats… fast

All about bass

It’s all about the bass in these three walkthroughs, moving from simple bass sounds to more complex creations

Keys and more

Now it’s time for the keys to step into the spotlight as we move on to think about creating chords and harmonies

Leads and special FX

Next up we look at the bespoke sounds your tracks need, with walkthroughs on creating leads and special FX

EQ & filtering

Let’s explore a few different ways to shape your sounds with EQ and filtering

Dynamics

For our final ‘How to do everything’ set of workshops, we’re looking at the moving subject of dynamics

MARTINA TOPLEY-BIRD

Martina Topley-Bird has a three-decade career during which she has worked with Tricky, Massive Attack and The Prodigy, but her fifth album, Forever I Wait, sees her embracing a new-found confidence

#06 Hip-hop vocal mixing

How do you make your vocals hit hardest in a genre that emphasises beats? Ashley Thorpe has the answers

#11 Creating a hollow bass

Recreating the original garage bass needs a little knowledge, while supplying the perfect patch for many current genres. Here’s how…

Get a great guitar sound part 4 - mixing

It’s all well and good having a distinctive guitar tone and a wide range of effects at your disposal, but you always need to consider just how your guitar works with the other elements of your tracks. It shouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb, but also you don’t want it to be buried beneath the other instruments. In the final part of our guitar series, let’s take a look at how we can prevent that from happening…

Weird and wonderful guitar sample libraries

Audiomodern Opacity II £85 Exquisitely performed and curated

IK Multimedia Syntronik 2 MAX €399

Maxing out their vintage plugin package, IK Multimedia add new synths, effects and some tasty new GUIs to their already generous softsynth

Spectrasonics Sonic EXtensions $149 PC MAC

Adding an extension to your living accommodation gives your property a new lease of life. Is the same true of Spectrasonics’ flagship plugin?

Expressive E Imagine €166.80 PC MAC

With the latest addition to their softsynth lineup, Expressive E get modelling, and there’s not a tube of glue in sight

Eventide SplitEQ $179 PC MAC

Agonising over whether to give that snare a 1kHz boost for snappiness, or a 1kHz cut to take away the boxiness? Why not do both?

Heavyocity Symphonic Destruction £325 PC MAC

Ever wondered what a symphony would sound like if it were to do battle with Optimus Prime? You’ll get a kick out of this then…

Mastering the Mix Reso £41.65 PC MAC

Mastering the Mix present another innovative peak-smoothening tool. Reso’s smart insights prove the benefits of AI for music production

Mixed in Key Live €58 PC MAC PC MAC

Embarrassed by theory-blindness? This learned virtual assistant can step in to detail what your music is doing in the theoretical sphere

BLEASS Dragonfly £25

Bringing a fresh approach to one of the oldest of modulation effects, Dragonfly re-thinks tremolo as a reactive rippler for quirky pop

Soundware round-up

cm mini reviews

U-HE BAZILLE CM

Another amazing u-he synth gets updated. Here’s how to get the latest (incredible) Bazille CM up and running

4 new packs!

We’ve gone for a waveform and drone theme this month for both new and classic free samples. Download them from filesilo.co.uk or wetransfer.com

RADIOSONICS

This issue’s first classic sample pack – inspired

DYSTOPIAN DRONES

An array of menacing sustained sounds await in this classic sample pack from issue 241. Whether you’re setting the scene with some dark atmospherics, mangling them to create evolving pads, or turning them into something entirely different, these dark ‘n’ dirty drone samples are the perfect source material. Created by samplesmiths Cyclick and Groove Criminals, these exclusive samples are royalty-free for use in your tracks

cm / video

Download this month’s videos: filesilo.co.uk/computermusic